The Melodious Nocturne
by crimson-obsidian-rose
Summary: Before he was Demyx, his name was Myde. And this was his story...


This story was inspired by a project I had to do for English class a while ago. I wrote it a few months back, but I've been wary of posting it for sometime, because it felt odd to me. Please enjoy, and tell me what you think.

Disclaimer: If I owned Demyx, then I would not be writing fan fiction. Sadly, SquareEnix has that privilege.

crimson-obsidian-rose

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**The Melodious Nocturne**

Myde is never hard to find. Everyone already knows, just close your eyes and follow the sweet sounding melody you hear and there he'll be, in an abandoned alley, or sitting on a build rooftop, sitar in hand.

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Sometimes when it's silent and Myde's flopped on his bed and his sitar's too far out of reach, he just lies there and muses. About everything; sometimes things as complex as life, but he's also spent a good amount of time wondering about the origin of marshmallows. The thing he spends the most time thinking about, though, is his childhood, and his mother. He closes his eyes and wishes that he could feel her; he's content in knowing he'll never see her, but maybe to just hear her voice or feel her warm hug, is that really too much to ask for?

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When Myde's father announces that he is going to marry _that woman_, Myde is 2 things. He's happy for his father, of course, but that feeling is being smothered by the shock that his father's fiancée is only 14 years older than he is, not even old enough to be his mom, and it's a hard idea to wrap his mind around. When he meets her, he gets it; she's young, and so incredibly beautiful, with shiny blonde hair and cute sparkling blue eyes; she's a trophy wife. Ignoring the urge to burst his step-mom-to-be's bubble of euphoria (because it's apparent she really does love Myde's dad), he smiles and excuses himself. When he gets up to his bedroom, he shuts (not slams, even if he wants to) the door, grabs the picture of his mother he keeps framed beside his bed, and puts it in front of him when he sits at the piano. He spends the rest of the night playing, and pretends that he can't hear the door knocking over it's sound.

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Myde has always been a musician, because his mother was one too. When she passed away, she left behind a beautiful baby grand piano for her son. His dad, knowing that being able to play such a fine instrument makes a person cultured, starts him in piano lessons when he's only four, and from there it takes off. Myde begins drums at eight, guitar at eleven, and he's thirteen when he discovers the Indian instrument, the sitar. It's a gift from a friend who's moving away, and from the first string plucked he loves it.

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Myde isn't known for being a good student. It's not that he's a bad student; he's never failed a class or anything, but he's not anything great at school. Average, he doesn't stand out to anyone until a music teacher walks past the band room and hears him playing the piano, and the next day at the drums. Intrigued he asks Myde everything; in the end Myde kindly refuses his offer to join the school band. Sure, it'd be nice to play for the entire school at all the big events, but that's not quite the audience Myde has in mind.

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He's always on the search for something new to play, and one day he suddenly finds himself faced with Chopin's nocturnes. They aren't exactly 'new', but they are such beautiful compositions; he falls in love instantly. Myde reserves these songs, he leaves the sheet music in a special folder on his bedside table, and takes them out only when he needs them. He has no problem accepting the fact that they always come out when his father's fiancée is over. In fact, in a way, he was almost expecting that from the start.

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The sitar is Myde's most beloved instrument, it's with him nearly everywhere he goes. In fact, the only place it isn't is at school, and that's because he learned the hard way that sitars don't mix well with the jocks (he doesn't want to have to replace any more 'lost' strings). Its case is huge, and he's lucky he's so tall; just barely enough to wear it relatively comfortably. He takes it out often, and goes and sits on park benches and building rooftops and train stations and plays for hours on end. Sometimes, when he finishes a song, he'll hear a mini applause and see a child watching him with mystified eyes, a smiling parent standing behind clapping for Myde too. And sometimes it's a senior resting on a cane, or a teenager going through a rough time, wearing an awed expression on a tear-stained face. This is the audience Myde plays for; this is what he lives for.

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2 years pass, and Myde is still playing for anyone, everyone. He's playing in the Underground station one day, and a man in a dress shirt (no jacket, Myde notices, he's not too official) approaches with a folded bill visible in his hand. There's no place to put the money, though, and Myde looks up at the confused man. He stops playing, and spots a homeless man a few feet away on the platform when he looks around.

"I don't need the money," Myde tells the man, "but I think he does."

The next day when Myde sets up, sitting in the same spot, he leaves his sitar case open beside him. He puts up a sign beside him "Everything I earn will be donated to the Central Square Food Bank." It may not be perfectly worded, and some of the people who've never seen Myde before doubt that this mulleted brunette, who doesn't look a day over… say 19, will really donate his earnings. The locals, though, know Myde; on that first day, he earns $56.89.

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As promised, after he packs up for the day, Myde hands the owner of the Food Bank $60.89 in an envelope (he adds four dollars he found in his pocket; money he later remembers was supposed to be next week's lunch money, but he doesn't mind it at all). The man looks in the envelope and back at the boy; Myde is tall, and incredibly lean. He figure looks somewhat underfed; the man doesn't want to accept this charity from a raggedy looking kid with a giant instrument case over his shoulder that looks like it's about to swallow him. But then Myde smiles so warmly, and his plea is so whole-hearted the old man cannot help but accept the money that day. The same thing happens a few days later when Myde is donating $102.94 in another sealed envelope to the town orphanage, and 2 days after that when it's $74.56 to the nursing home. The kind words of the owners of these establishments make him feel good; seeing the smiles of the little kids when his money is able to help them makes him beam.

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Myde knows what it's like to feel alone. It's another one of those things that he's come to accept; his father is busy running the city, and his mom… Myde misses his mom. He was only 3 years old, he could barely function without her, when he was screaming at her funeral. He knows he hasn't been the same since, even though he can't remember what he was like back then. No mother, barely a father, and a step-mother who he wishes he could except, only she's too young and eccentric and _she thinks she's his mom but she's not and will never be. _So he smiles at her, gives her the respect she deserves and then some when he sees her (which is, not surprisingly, more often then he sees his dad) and politely escapes to his bedroom, his musical sanctuary.

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His father doesn't know that he plays for charities. Actually, his dad thinks that he's a street rat, that his son is a disgrace who begs on the streets like some bum for money. He's seen street musicians before; he doesn't like them. So whenever he happens to catch sight of the dark brown mullet, oceanic eyes and tall, lean stature that he knows is his son, he completely ignores him. As far as he is concerned, that musician who worships a demented guitar and a baby grand is not his son.

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They're eating dinner together, as a _family_ for the first time in years, as arranged by his step-mom to bridge the gap between corrupt politician father and melodious-minded teenaged son. Today's the day that 17 year old Myde, the lonely, smiley musician, is going to tell his father everything about what he does and what he believes in. He's going to play his sitar, his father is going to listen. The man is grumbling into his plate while he moves food around, his trophy-wife tries to force happy conversation to no avail, and Myde is starting to get butterflies, but before the meal ends things get bad fast. In an instant windows are smashed, the door collapses, and little black bugs and are crawling all over the place. Trophy-wife shrieks, politician is too panicked to do anything ("what the _hell_ are these things!" he thinks frozen in place), but Myde knows exactly what to do. He grabs the instrument he'd set against the wall, just at the end of his long reach, and turns it around. Now, the sitar, at first his only companion and the embodiment of his being; now it was his weapon. He runs right in front of his father, where the black things are gathering ("yummy yummy yummy powerful heart…") and holds it out in front of him. Fierce, electric blue eyes gazed into his father's hazel ones, and without a word Myde told him "My _sitar and I_ will _save you._"

And he starts to swipe, swinging back and forth almost crazily, but he doesn't miss. Black things fall back, some fade into nothing, but they're too much for him. They crawl all over his sitar, smother it, and Myde can feel it right then; he's lost.

Myde is not surprised that he's not afraid. And, when he turns in his last moment to find that that woman and _his father_ are gone; well, he's not too surprised then either. Slowly, peacefully, he closes his blue eyes, almost like he's just drifting into sleep while little black bugs swipe at his chest. As he fades away there is only one thing left; he cannot see, or feel, or smell, but Myde can hear the dark, enchanting melody of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, and upbeat tune of Ode to Joy, and Chopin's Nocturne Op.9 No.2, and Mozart's Requiem; all of them, all at once. They're bleeding, blending, morphing into a song so powerful and yet soothing, and intense and comforting that while he's slipping into darkness Myde hears himself laugh, and finally feels himself sob.


End file.
